Microsoft litigates Samsung for contract breach, another trouble after Apple

Samsung, with its new financial problems and its need to appease investors, finds itself in hot water for interest on a late royalty payment to Microsoft.

Companies are known for suing one another, but the latest lawsuit involves an interesting pair: Microsoft and Samsung.

Microsoft, having massive control over Windows Phone and Window OS, now that Redmond’s bought Nokia’s mobile division, also makes money from patents. The company’s owned a patent regarding multiple web browser windows for some years, and, with private licensing agreements, allows companies to make royalty payments with a set timetable for quarterly or annual pay schedule. Microsoft and Samsung struck a deal back in 2011 regarding web browser windows.

Recently, the company says that Samsung failed to make its payment on time, at which point interest was attached to the late payment. Now, Samsung refuses to pay interest – despite the fact that it failed to make the royalty payment on time. “After becoming the leading player in the world-wide smartphone market, Samsung decided late last year to stop complying with its agreement with Microsoft,” said Microsoft general counsel deputy David Howard last week.

Microsoft feels justified in its lawsuit, but Samsung says that the company failed to abide by its agreement with Samsung by purchasing Nokia’s mobile division. Apparently, Microsoft’s new acquisition places the company in some form of competition with Samsung’s smartphone market.

Samsung’s claim in this new lawsuit against Microsoft makes us wonder if Samsung’s used similar conditions in its new cross-licensing deal with Google, for example – which may explain why Google quickly sold off Motorola Mobility after Mountain View and Samsung had negotiation talks back in February immediately after Mobile World Congress 2014.